Flick Once upon a time — say, the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s — tradition was to have an ornate, adjective-happy account of your wedding written up in the local paper, with a picture of the bride-in-gown, including all the names of the bridal party, and who cut the cake, and the color of the bridesmaids' dresses, and the kind of flowers, and where the happy nuptials went on their romantic, sea-washed honeymoon. Then tradition went away. Until last Sunday.
Did you get this newspaper? There, on page B7 , was the account of the Del Mar, Calif., wedding of Dennis Graff and Shari Seward, two Central Illinois natives, now respectively 70 and 55, that included the story of how Graff, a Gibson City High basketball all-stater and headline-maker then, too, won in 1974 a large stuffed dog by shooting baskets at the county fair for a friend's then 5-year-old daughter in nearby Tolono. On Aug.
4, 2024 — exactly 50 years later — she also became Graff’s bride. Shari Seward and Dennis Graff For both, it was a soft-boiled romance-novel-come-true, she an educator, a single mom of two grown children and he a business-litigation lawyer for 40 years, the last 25-plus as a bachelor ..
. until they met again a near half-century later. And boy did they know how to marry.
Like a newspaper account out of yesterday, their wedding announcement took an entire page, a color photo of the happy couple, a huge headline ("A Spectacular Wedding") and a write-up of (not a typo) nearly 2,000 words. Song selection, flower type, the bride wearing “a Princess Grace Kelly-inspired wedding gown, specially made for her by legendary Beverly Hills dressmaker, Aria Baracci.” It referred to the newlyweds “widely regarded as the most stylish couple to grace the planet since the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
" On Sunday then, after hitting the papers, it also set social media ablaze with posts and comments ...
“I miss reading wedding announcements like this.” “I thought it was a bit much.” “I read every word, in amazement! Guess it was a success.
” “An instrument has yet to be invented that can measure my indifference to this wedding announcement.” “Incredibly sweet! Everybody loves a happy party and, if they have the money, why not?” The Graffs are shown on the Thames River in London. Also: “Did she get a toaster?” The full-page — paid for and run in this newspaper, as well as the Champaign News-Gazette and Ford County Chronicle — was so long, largesse and unusual for today — it left a reader wondering, umm, uh, what is this? And why? And Dennis Graff’s response: Hey, why not? “Some might have thought it was a little over the top,” he says, back from a honeymoon with his bride late last week, on the phone in the couple’s Newport Beach, California, home.
“But when you think about, aren’t ALL big weddings really just a lot of excess?” A nicely humored guy, Graff, confides friends, has always had a flair for the game-winning shot, putting on a great show — the Greatest Show on Graff. Says Dennis: “Weddings and their receptions can be — let’s be honest — a little boring. So we wanted to produce an event that we ourselves loved and our guests would be fully entertained.
” The Graffs are shown in a provided photo. They found a 21-piece, tuxedoed Tommy Dorsey-like swing orchestra to play. They hired a harpist to greet guests.
It was staged at the legendary, 5-star, old-fashioned luxury hotel — the Fairmont Grand Del Mar near San Diego — where basketball’s LeBron James, as pointed out in their newspaper announcement, also had his wedding. Songs were specially written to wedge the 51⁄2 hours of wedded celebration. It was climaxed, just past sunset, with a drone light show similar to what ended the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
As trumpets blared, 200 drones roved overhead, doing colorful formations — floating hearts, tipped cocktail glasses, wedding roses, a U.S. flag, capped by the couple’s initials, as Sinatra sang, “I Did It My Way.
” And they did. The newlywed Graffs are shown at a Jerry Seinfield show. “We out-did it,” says Dennis.
“We’ll never forget it, and we’re convinced all of our guests won’t either.” Says Hal Graff, of Bloomington, brother of the groom and Best Man: “It was spectacular. A great couple.
Great friends. Lots of tomfoolery. Great fun.
” Then came the post-wedding, mass-read in the newspapers. We checked with the Guinness Book of World Records, filled with amazing nuptial grist (longest wedding — 58 hours, 35 minutes; longest wedding gown — a little over 5 miles; heaviest wedding cake — 15,185 pounds; most bridesmaids — 79), but nothing about the most-worded wedding account to ever appear in a newspaper. So it may well be the Graff-Seward extravaganza.
Remember, you read it here first. Or maybe you're still reading it. Bill Flick is at bflick@pantagraph.
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